Plasmas are widely used for a variety of treatment and layer deposition tasks in semiconductor fabrication. These applications include subtractive processes such as wafer precleaning, contaminant removal, native oxide removal, photoresist removal, plasma etching, as well as additive processes such as deposition, oxidation, nitridation, or hydridation of a layer both during and after formation. “Remote” plasma sources are frequently used where the plasma generator is located some distance from a surface to be treated or substrate on which a layer is to be formed. The distance allows the charged particles in the plasma to be filtered such that the density of electrons and ions may be adjusted.
Heretofore, remote plasma sources have been used to provide uniform exposure for entire substrates and experimental studies of process variables have required dedicating an entire wafer to each process condition to be tested. What is needed is a system that allows systematic exploration of process variables in a combinatorial manner with many variations on a single substrate.
The present invention addresses such a need.